To What Extent Does Your Life Revolve Around Alejandro Kirk? (The 2023 Blue Jays Thread)

I didn’t post about it on here, but there was a story last season & also this season with Jarren Duran:

https://www.masslive.com/redsox/2023/08/alex-cora-red-sox-talked-with-jarren-duran-about-posts-on-mental-struggles.html

Everyone knows it’s a game of failure but how players deal with it especially in this day and age when anyone can contact them directly to tell them exactly what they think is another question.

I remember reading in Joan Ryan’s team chemistry book about Lincecum’s slump in August 2010, and it was clear that the guy who’d won the Golden Spikes, was called up less than a year after being drafted and won two Cys back to back in his first full seasons had never experienced this kind of failure before.

With Duran, he made some high profile errors (in a horrific game against the Blue Jays), got sent down last year, talked about being suicidal. This season he started off strong, slumped a bit, came back strong, slumped a bit, but talked about how helpful he found Justin Turner to be in dealing with failure. He said Turner’s approach was the classic “turn the page” approach where you have to come to each day anew, because it’s a long season and you can’t pull yourself down.

And yet this happened during another slump.

I think it must be hard for players to deal with their bodies not responding as they have done all their lives. You suddenly can’t get guys out or reliably hit, and there’s nowhere to hide. But I think for Manoah and Duran both, to have dealt with such high profile failure, seeming to come back and succeed again (this is success in a more limited sense for Manoah because he didn’t come back to what he had been before) only to get pulled down again? Must have been hard.

I don’t really know very much about how clubs handle their young players like this, but we can only hope that they treat them as the people they are and not assets to be stripped and dumped when they don’t perform anymore. Wow I wrote a lot, sorry!

Everyone knows it’s a game of failure but how players deal with it especially in this day and age when anyone can contact them directly to tell them exactly what they think is another question.

Which is undoubtedly the biggest difference between today and a couple of famous and long-gone poor starts: Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle. Mays had Durocher (helping him), Mantle had his father (making it worse), but neither had to deal with social media.

(Of course Manoah--and I'm trying to stay consistent here--compounds the problem by mucking around on Twitter.)

Yeah. I actually learned the story about Willie Mays crying in front of his locker as a rookie after going 0-23 while reading a piece about 2023 rookies and their struggles adjusting to the big leagues. Can’t imagine how it might have gone if he’d been asked, constantly, why aren’t you hitting? Why aren’t you getting the job done? Why? Why? Why?

I think I linked this piece before as a favourite tribute to a favourite player but this Lowell Cohn piece about, yes, Lincecum and the end of his Giants career stuck with me for many reasons, but mainly just this:

But after he pitched, he talked. Was required to talk. Then everything was different. He stood at his locker as long as reporters wanted — a painfully long time after the decline started. The questions, asked so many different ways, amounted to one thing: “What’s wrong with you?”

Imagine people asking you, day after day, what’s wrong with you. You might pop your cork. Or run out of the room. Not Lincecum. He stood there. Took it. Said he was sorry for letting down the team. Said he wasn’t throwing like he wanted.

And all the time he looked so sad. Or was it guilty? This torture with the writers was his penance. Maybe it was a form of psychotherapy. And all the writers were kind to him, polite. How could it be otherwise? He gave the best of himself and he deserved the best of us.

Manoah was brought up so quickly, just 3 games in AAA and was dropped right in the Bronx. He performed so well, it almost didn't make sense to me. I was waiting for the pendulum to swing the other way, and it never did all through last season. He almost certainly was rushed too quickly back up this year. Jays had very few SP options. Now they don't appear to have such a need in that department for a playoff run, but they may have set Alek back unnecessarily by not taking the long view of the season. It's tricky, he's paid to help the team, but he might also be going through something really heavy, so it ends up feeling potentially callous but also counterproductive anyway. Even just for baseball reasons, gotta give him time. Make sure there's actual starting depth next season and go way slower.

Locked in a life-and-death struggle with the A's. Reggie, Catfish, Vida, Bando, Campy--great, great team.

I hate my previous post--so petulant. They're a hard team to love, but I should just be happy they're in it.

They're overtaken the Rangers for the final WC spot.

They've

Notice that the four teams fighting for three spots--Jays, Mariners, Astros, and Rangers (I won't count Tampa Bay)--have one thing in common: they're all under .500 against winning teams (ditto the Twins).

They're now 6-2 over the last three series against the worst teams in baseball, with one more game vs KC (8-3 including the Nationals series that preceded). Texas is collapsing, Seattle has a brutal schedule down the stretch, I'm optimistic again.

Dead heat with the Mariners now, two up on Texas.

No doubt my forever-complaining-fan mindset, but that feels like the first time in ages where the Jays were supposed to sweep a series and they actually did.

I was listening to yesterday's game from an adjacent room (it's just maddening to watch the Jays these days...my problem, not theirs), so I didn't actually see this till highlights later on. You'll never see anything like it.

my goodness three consecutive pitches 😮 pic.twitter.com/8qosgINimm

— Codify (@CodifyBaseball) September 10, 2023

even crazier, Ragans was absolutely dominatinant to that point (one hit), gives up 2 straight walks, both scoring on those wild pitches to tie it up, ending a 26-inning scoreless streak! what a way to do it.

dominatinant means *extra* dominant :P

Alek Manoah never reported to Triple-A when he was optioned on August 11th because he was upset about the decision, per @SNJeffBlair

Manoah reportedly has not even been throwing bullpens or side sessions. It’s unlikely that he’ll pitch in a game again this year pic.twitter.com/P6y3Bw5xwD

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) September 12, 2023

Something's going on that no one's talking about.

Terrible start to this big series last night. Bassitt has been an enigma the whole year.

Yeah you will know the answer to this, but that info has got to be leaked, right? I don’t think anyone was really clamouring for it? And if it was leaked it’s presumably reflecting the official view of the player’s behaviour?

Some explanation, maybe--not good.

Alek Manoah never reported to Triple-A when he was optioned on August 11th because he was upset about the decision, per @SNJeffBlair

Manoah reportedly has not even been throwing bullpens or side sessions. It’s unlikely that he’ll pitch in a game again this year pic.twitter.com/P6y3Bw5xwD

— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) September 12, 2023

Weirdly enough, ties in with a David Wells rant making news.

https://nypost.com/2023/09/10/david-wells-on-how-to-fix-yankees-send-players-to-minors/

The team on the field...I'm back in whining, petulant mode. I'd down Friday for the Red Sox, and again on the 30th for Tampa. If they don't win these next two, that will very much dim some of the excitement for Friday, and the 30th will feel like a complete waste if the game's meaningless.

Sox are really bad atm so Blue Jays will probably win…You might see Brayan Bello pitching though & I’ll be really jealous if you do. (There is no starter currently named for Friday, think they are waiting to see if Sale will go Saturday.)

I'd like to see him, so hopefully the schedule will fall that way. I definitely don't want to see Chris Bassitt for the fourth time this year.

It's just the way he looks that makes this funny:

https://www.mlb.com/news/davis-scheider-hot-start-blue-jays-2023

Yeah that stache is hilarious for a 24 year old. He’s had some start.

I don’t get to watch the Jays often atm but what are your thoughts on Vladdy’s performance? Also, sorry to hear Belt is out again.

Disappointment--extreme. Yes, he's still young by normal standards (e.g., younger than all these guys who were just brought up from Syracuse), but to become what he was advertised as--a generational hitter--that's a different timetable; that window is fast closing. The thing that Steve Shasta posted about a month or two ago, how much his COVID time in the two minor-league parks skewed his numbers--something so obvious that I'd never clued into for some reason--has really made me rethink Vlad. I'm sure he'll still put together a pretty good career, but generational, I don't think so.

That piece on Schneider breaks down his success in really interesting ways. And no, I don't think he's generational either--maybe for another couple of weeks. (His mustache is, though.)Nobody that looks like that will continue to hit like Stan Musial; it defies the laws of baseball.

Am I more optimistic on him? I mean his dad played well into his thirties. The thing that seemed slightly concerning to me (limited sample size) is that he seems to be striking out a bit more and previously that was something he wouldn’t usually do, like he’d make some contact. He’s still extremely good and I’d expect him to get a big contract. But from watching Jays games this year Bo has been the team’s standout hitter for me.

xp yeah he might have had an explosive EDLC-like start and then either cools off or the league adjusts back to him. I read that the manager hasn’t been playing him every day (!) so that limited exposure might have been in his favour.

I finally figured out who he looks like: G. Gordon Liddy (possibly doing some illegal covert stuff for the CIA, hence the glasses).

Also: don't ask me why I'm resorting to an cliché like "generational." Kill that, along with "elite," and let's stick with some old standby like future Hall of Famer.

Just got home, down 4-0 already.

Davis is starting everyday now, I think he's sat only once this month, but was inexplicably being sat regularly at the end of August.

A lot of talk about Vlad (on broadcast, etc), is that Vlad's timing is off. Buck Martinez was breaking down how his hands/legs are not operating in sync last night. I can't remember Vlad being on a hot streak since '21, honestly. Just seems to be treading along, towing his bad mechanics behind him. Biggio and Clement have now passed him in fWAR. It's not his fault he was touted so highly as a "Generational Talent", but damn, he's not looking good, even compared to last year.

Jays just went down 0-4. The pitching just can't possibly keep this pace. So we'll see how these Buffalo-bolstered bats do tonight, but there's so little power, it's hard to truly believe in this team's chances: tonight, and definitely if they should make the playoffs.

xp

It's not his fault he was touted so highly

Definitely--no control over that. If Biggio had Vlad's numbers for his career, I'm sure we'd be very happy.

yeah i wasn't directing that at you btw, it's a *very* common thing to read online re: his disappointing trend downward from '21. Jays' media has obviously fed into the "our generation's Vlad" narrative in a huge way since he was signed. to expect that of someone is to be disappointed

I didn't think you were...Have you looked at those stats out of the two parks in Buffalo and Dunedin? Every Jays fan should. Honestly, I think you have to treat those numbers like you'd treat numbers out of Colorado in the late '90s.

how would i go about looking that up? didn't offensive numbers spike in 2021, also? my memory might be betraying me

*league-wide offensive numbers

I'll cut-and-paste from my post from a couple of weeks ago. It's all on Baseball Reference.

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When you look at Vlad's career box, 2021, his near-MVP season, really jumps out--it's the one season everyone continues to hang their hopes on.

But if you eliminate all those games played at Sahlen Field in Buffalo (2020 and 2021) and TD Ballpark in Dunedin (2021), there really is much more uniformity. His adjusted stats year-by-year:

Year        BA        OBP        SLG        OPS+
2019       .272      .339       .433        106
2020       .213      .288       .377         97
2021       .292      .375       .518        149
2022       .274      .339       .480        133
2023       .265      .342       .436        116

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So he still has a good year in 2021, but not anywhere near MVP-level.

thanks for that. i went looking for an article that isolated those stats for me:

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/09/vladimir-guerrero-jr-s-unusual-replacement-level-season.html

Guerrero still had a .935 OPS in 152 PA at Rogers Centre in 2021, though even that impressive total paled in comparison to his numbers at the Blue Jays’ other two home ballparks that season — a 1.418 OPS in 96 PA at the Jays’ spring complex in Dunedin, or his 1.180 OPS in 98 PA at Buffalo’s Sahlen Field.

and another piece of the puzzle that I've followed this year:

a glimpse at Guerrero’s Statcast page would make one think that he is again an MVP candidate. Guerrero ranks in at least the 89th percentile in such key categories as strikeout rate, hard contact, barrels, expected batting average, expected on-base percentage, expected slugging percentage, exit velocity, and xwOBA. In fact, that latter statistic hints that Guerrero’s relative struggles this season have been due to horrid luck. No qualified player in baseball has a larger gap between their xwOBA and wOBA than Guerrero, whose elite .379 xwOBA has resulted in a much more modest .332 wOBA.

Blair and Barker have been talking about his hard-hit and barrel rate all year, wavering between "this promises better things ahead" and "at a certain point, who cares?" I don't know what to think about all that.

What a pathetic showing these last three games.

Such a depressing series. Outscored 26-7 at home. The Rangers were looking cooked a week ago, now they've won five in a row. They're now at 79 percent playoff odds, and the Jays are at 46 percent. I think those numbers were flipped before the series.

More Vlad Panic:

https://www.si.com/fannation/mlb/fastball/news/vladimir-guerrero-jr-of-the-toronto-blue-jays-has-significantly-worse-stats-against-the-good-teams-in-2023#:~:text=He's%20hitting%20.263%20this%20season,base%20percentage%20and%20111%20RBI.

No idea if that means anything--you'd have to check that over a few years. Guessing it's a blip.

But the booing last night--wasn't watching, read about it--was real. He's had a lot of goodwill on his side thus far. If the Jays miss the playoffs, which looks like a good bet right now, and he starts off slow next year, I expect fans will turn on him with a vengeance, whether deserved or not.

Friday night pitchers: Bello - Berrios. Have a good evening! Bello has had some blowouts but he’s hugely promising and is evolving all the time, he’s got a great changeup.

I'm that close--holds thumb and index finger 1 cm apart--to rooting for Bello.

This series has to rank with the franchise's all-time debacles, and we've had a few.

I think they have exactly one thing going for them at this point, something completely intangible and possibly even non-existent: my contention that as soon as you think you have something figured out when it comes to sports, that's when the exact opposite happens.

That's a very faint hope to cling to.

Pleased to see young Jays fans know ball
https://i.postimg.cc/y8rJLpzs/IMG-9526.png

Looked like Bello had a good game, minus that one hit ofc - Red Sox Stats was annoyed about the pitch as it’s been a problem for him for a while though (no slight on Vladdy, but why call for that pitch then).

From July:

Someone needs to explain to me why Bello throws his 4-seam fastball as much as he does and in the locations he does. I don’t get what they are doing.

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) July 19, 2023

Anytime Bello throws a 4-seamer below the belt it should be a 25 grand fine and 50 grand for whichever catcher calls for it.

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) September 16, 2023

It was a fast-moving, classic kind of old-fashioned game: starting pitching, one big HR, a little over two hours. Bello was good--had 9 strikeouts at one point. The highlight for me was Kirk legging out a double; he gave the most forlorn fist pump I've ever seen when he was called safe. I have a 2-hour+ drive home, so the quickness was a godsend; unfortunately wasted when I encountered overnight road work on the way home. (Half an hour to cover a kilometre.)

I was with my friend Howard, who I met almost 40 years ago at Nerve (Toronto music monthly). What do two old '80s rock critics talk about at a baseball game? Actual quote: "I wonder what Professor Griff is doing tonight?"

https://i.postimg.cc/bYG28yNn/game.jpg

10ks which is I think his most in a big league start! That Kirk run was very funny

We of course arrived too late to get our Berríos bobblehead on Roberto Clemente Day--you have to arrive hours ahead of time now to get free stuff. There was a guy sitting near us who had three, and I offered to buy one from him, but no interest. They're on eBay for $100.

Berrios was great--left after 7 innings/90 pitches with a 3-0 lead. I would have given him one runner in the 8th the way the bullpen's been lately, but worked out fine.

Was hoping you’d get to see Casas but unfortunately he’s injured and out for the season. Did you have any opinions on Abreu or Rafaela?